Caley One Shot
by shelizabeth
Summary: Casey Abrams is a successful music artist and newcomer Haley Reinhart is just starting out her career when Casey wants Haley to open for him on his tour.


"_Hello. I'm calling concerning a business inquiry in regards to Miss Haley Reinhart."_

_ "Who am I speaking to?"_

_ "I'm calling on behalf of Casey Abrams."_

_ "How can I help you?"_

Haley

I've been on tour for a total of three hours and thirty seven minutes. Casey Abrams asked me to open for him, which was like a really random dream come true. I always used to listen to his music and think about singing with him. It's a little crazy how things come when you least expect them. There is some serious truth about the beauty of a rainbow after a storm. Casey is supposed to come by in a half hour to meet me and talk about the show tomorrow. I look at the clock before I start to let my eyelids slide shut. Just resting my eyes for a minute, I tell myself.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Casey comes barreling in, without knocking. I snap awake and look at the clock. It's a little past midnight. That means he's five hours late.

"Ummm… it's um.. it's fine." I say, stumbling a little for words.

"Yeah there's not really anything" Casey burps, "to talk about. You have seven songs. Sing them. Engage with the crowd a little. The usual. Management will work it all out."

"Oh okay…" I say, looking at him. When he looks up at me, I am startled by the shock I feel all the way to my veins. Suddenly, his manner changes a little.

"You'll do great. Don't worry about it." He tries.

"Thanks… um.. thanks." I smile and nod. "I'm kinda tired." I continue, hinting to him.

"Right. Okay. Nice to meet you." He puts his hand out. I shake it.

I'm backstage raving to the crew members when Casey finishes his set. I'm on a natural high from performing earlier when he comes over to me.

"Not to be one of those people who always has to be right… but I was right." He smirks.

"What?" I turn around to face him.

"I was right… you did great tonight."

"Oh! Well… thank you. So did um…so did you." I reply, feeling the heat of the red follow its path to my cheeks.

" Listen I know it's kinda early to start this. But do you want to go to dinner with me sometime?" He leers.

"Casey, you seem like a really… interesting… guy. But we have nine months ahead of us and I just don't want to-" I start.

"It's fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it." He cuts me off.

"I'm sorry. It's not that I don't like you it's just-" I lie. I really don't like him.

"I get it. It's fine. See you around."

"I'm sorry!" My voice gets a little louder as I speak to his back, moving farther and farther away from me each second. I can almost feel the desperation in the air that followed the words as they left my mouth. I walk with a little less skip to my step back to my bus. I fall asleep quickly, for this I'm grateful. A night with little thinking is a good night for me.

I wake up and for a few seconds, I forget where I am. I rub my eyes and remember: I'm living my dream. Another day, another city. I smile at this thought. I look at the clock next to my queen size bed on this bus and see it's already almost eleven. I calculate how many hours I slept as I start to walk to the tiny bathroom.

_Roses are only mostly red_

_ Violets aren't really blue_

_ Your brown eyes are beautiful_

_ What does it take to get a date with you?_

_P.S. Denny let me in _

Denny, the driver. I make a mental note to talk to him about boundaries later. I rip off the note from my mirror and walk outside and look for a sign of Casey. I knock on his bus, then I start using my fists to knock, mostly absent mindedly.

"Can I help you?" He says amused.

"Hello?" I hold up the note he left on my bathroom mirror.

"How did you know it was from me?"

"Because you signed it?"

"No I didn't." I've never seen someone so smug in my life.

"It was obviously you." I put all my effort into stopping my lips from curving up.

"So did it work?" He puts his hand on the side of my stomach and he slowly moves to my hip, where he tightens his grip just enough. I place my hand over his and pause for only a second before I lift it off.

"No."

"Whatever you say."

I roll my eyes. I start to walk away.

"Wait." He calls.

"What?"

"There's nothing stopping you from being friends with me right? We can go out to lunch as friends, right?"

"Well… I guess." I say, caught a little off guard.

Turns out me and Casey have a lot in common. We both love guacamole, our all-time favorite movie is Now and Then and we both believe in aliens. He makes me laugh and despite first impressions, he's really a perfect gentleman. He even bought me a single yellow rose. He said it was in reference to his poem, that roses are only mostly red.

Casey and I have spent pretty much all of our free time together the past two months. Sometimes he still slips out with compliments or holds his gaze a little too long, but we have done really well at keeping our friendship. When my dog Jango died, all I wanted to do was be with Casey. He held me just enough so I felt comfortable, for the first time in my life, falling apart knowing I could count on someone else to keep me together. Casey, in the span of two months, became my absolute best friend.

That night at the show, I'm drinking water after my set, cooling down, when a crew member fast approaches me. He is urgent, telling me to go to right stage. I follow his directions hesitantly, if only to calm his sweet heart. Suddenly I hear my name, and Casey's voice saying it. He is calling me on stage. I start walking, slowly.

"Wasn't she amazing everybody?" The crowd cheers. A crew member brings a chair on stage and ushers me to sit down. I look at Casey trying to question him with only my gaze, but he's just smiling.

"If you know the words to this one, help me out a little." He faces the crowd. Suddenly the music to Midnight Girl is playing, and Casey is singing to me. For a moment I get lost in the idea that this is my actual life now, but then I come back. I don't know if I'm in love or seething with anger at him for doing this without giving me any warning. When the song finishes, I look to the crowd and am amazed again at what is happening. When I look back, Casey has a bouquet of red roses in his hands.

"Sometimes, roses can be red." He whispers to me. I hear a chorus of "awwwws" in the audience and then chanting of the word kiss. I look at Casey, flustered. He kisses me on the cheek and then a crew member ushers me to come off stage towards him. I walk to him with relief, waving bye to the audience and holding my flowers in one hand and my cheek with the other.

Casey comes to find me after the show.

"What was that?!" I ask him.

"Will you marry me?" He asks quickly.

"What! No!"

"Why? I know it seems quick but when you meet someone you just know. I'm in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you Haley Reinhart."

"What. No. What are you even saying? Go to bed or something. You're crazy." I stare at him in disbelief. He's holding a ring.

"Casey! Stop! We barely even know each other. I do like you. I do. But you're going way too fast. We literally just met."

He looks at me like he is surprised and for the first time since I met him, his front is down. He is vulnerable.

"Casey." I start, trying taking his hands.

"No you're right. I don't know what I was thinking." His hands are yanked free from me as he turns to walk away.

We have four months left of tour. Me and Casey have barely spoken since that night, except a month ago. That's when Casey started up with one of the crew member's daughter, Riley. She's 18 and gorgeous. It's been off and on with her but when he's not with her, he's trying to bring the next one home. Sometimes I feel like I really have no place getting so irritated… but other times it's like, who does he think he is. We have tonight and tomorrow off before our next show. I figured by this time we would have been okay, but we aren't. So I called him earlier and we decided I'm going over to try and talk things out with him.

I knock softly, hesitant if I still want to back out or not. I'm still deciding until I see his face when the door opens.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"We need to talk."

"Ummm… I'm kinda busy right now. Can you come back in like an hour?"

"You're busy? With what?" I say annoyed. I try to look beyond him, into the bus.

"It's nothing. I just-"

"You have a girl in there. You son of a bitch."

"No. No, it's not like that."

"Really? Tell me you don't have a girl in there."

He looks at me for a long time, seemingly searching for the words that are both honest and what I want to hear.

"I can't."

"You're a piece of shit. I mean, really. Now? Was it really necessary? I put up with it for 5 months, but when you knew I was coming over? What is your problem?"

"Why do you care?"

"I don't."

"You seem like you care."

"Well I don't." I leave him there, before I let myself think any further.

A few weeks go by, and we haven't spoken at all. I started to feel bad about getting so angry, but every time I try to reach out to him he ignores me. Finally, on another rest day, that's when I do most of my thinking, I start to realize everything that is happening is everything I wanted to prevent and for a little while, I feel pure unadulterated hate for Casey Abrams. It's not my fault for wanting to maintain a civil relationship and yet he just couldn't respect that. Suddenly I'm seething with anger and before I lose my spark, I march over to his bus. Hoping it's open before I even try to knock, I turn the handle. Luckily it is. I march right in, ready to give him a speech about his latest whore and how this whole thing is completely his fault.

"Casey Abrams, this whole thing is entirely your fault. I played no part in this and deserve no blame for anything that has happened between us." I've caught him off guard.

"I _politely_declined your advances for a date and still tried to maintain a friendship with you but that just wasn't enough for you. You expected more of me than I was able to give at the point in my life and it's not fair to hold me accountable for your crazy expectations. You asked me to marry you completely out of the blue. I'm twenty two years old. I no longer take any of the responsibility for the mess that is on this tour. And that is all I would like to say." I exhale and look to see his reaction, anticipating and nervous. He doesn't say anything when he gets up. I watch him, unsure of what he's doing. In the next instant, his hands are on my face and his lips are overwhelming mine, softly, and beautifully.

"Casey…" I breathe.

"Shhh." I listen to him as I move back to kiss him again.

"You're selfish and immature and you don't know what you want. You're impulsive. You make my heart beat so fast I think it's going to jump out of my chest. Everything you do drives me crazy. And I think I'm in love with you." I say to him while I'm still close enough to feel his breath.

He pulls away. I wait for his response, hopelessly.

"Casey?"

"I love you too," he smiles, "but you should go." he finishes regretfully. I look at him confused and follow his gaze to his closed bedroom door.

"Oh." I say with understanding.

I walk out, with my head hung low and my self-esteem even lower. I think about the term heart break. I always thought it was a cliché. The idea of a heart break seemed ridiculous. A heart couldn't break. But more and more every day, I was finding that I was wrong. There is a physical pain in your chest that comes from finding out someone is not who you desperately needed them to be. There is a pain all over from finding out that you love someone an irresponsible amount and there is nothing in your power you can do to make them feel half of what you do. It is not just a heart break. It is a body break. I don't go straight home. I take a long walk, not knowing where I was going. I listen and think and dream and hope that there is something more in this life that I have to look forward to. Finally, when I'm so worn out I'm confident that I'll fall asleep when I get back, I head back to my bus.

I open the door and see a ring lying on the step to get in. I am puzzled only for a minute before I realize it's the ring Casey offered to me five months ago. Then I am even more puzzled. I look up to see him standing in the hallway.

"Denny let me in." He explains with a knowing smile.

"I'm still not marrying you." I laugh at him, holding the ring. He laughs at me at pulls a single yellow rose from behind his back, like the first time we had lunch together. With his free hand, he uses his thumb to wipe away a tear on my cheek that was left over from earlier. I take the rose from him.

"I can wait." He smiles and pushes my hair back before he kisses me.


End file.
